Ducks
White strips of rags
Dangle and wave attached to the tips of bamboo rods
Knuckle jointed
Fifteen feet long
One grasped in each sinewy hand
Of the Vietnamese duck man
As he steers this hungry flock
From one rice paddy to the next
Eating the insects that would wish
To snack on
Fresh green shoots
Quacking foul and boisterous as
Traffic in a Hanoi roundabout
The face of a clock
Reading quarter past ten
His arms soaring forward
As if outstretched wings
The birds nested in the center
Of the walking flock are of little concern
To the leather weathered skinned duck man
It is the outliers that he eyes
From beneath his straw non la
Those few who would rather snap at the muslin scraps
Than attend to the task at hand
Just as one is gently tapped back in at the right
Another attempts to escape to the left
Dreaming of pastures not within the constrictions
Of this day's curriculum
And every good tender of livestock knows
One never plays favorites
Although
How can he help but admire
Those who push at the edges
The ones
Who make him work
The hardest?
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